


a little nearer yet

by Myargalargan



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Ember Island (Avatar), F/M, Fluff, Missing Scene, One Shot, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29401563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myargalargan/pseuds/Myargalargan
Summary: Sokka helps Suki finally shed her prison garb, and Suki helps Sokka find some work-life balance. Ember Island missing moment, takes place between Southern Raiders and Ember Island Players.
Relationships: Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 47





	a little nearer yet

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little Sukka fluff for Valentine's Day!
> 
> Title taken from a line in the poem "Insomnia" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

When Suki woke up without one of Sokka’s bony joints lodged into her ribcage, she knew something was amiss. She’d only been sharing a sleeping space with Sokka for a few days, but that had been plenty of time to start picking up on his habits. 

They’d been on Ember Island for two nights now. Technically, Suki had her own room in Zuko’s old family beach house, but ever since she and Sokka had reunited after the escape from Boiling Rock, sneaking into his bed at night had become one of _her_ habits. Just because there was enough space in the royal family’s vacation home to accommodate three times the population of her village didn’t mean Suki was interested in having four walls all to herself. Again.

So she put up with the errant limbs and his tendency to kick the blankets off in the middle of the night. Because it wasn’t all fighting for space and accidental elbows to the head. The previous morning, she’d awoken to find Sokka sprawled across most of the bed, one of his knees digging into her hip. But when she turned towards him, any annoyance she might’ve felt evaporated the moment she saw his wide-open mouth and untroubled eyebrows. Rather than shoving him back to his side of the bed, she arranged her limbs on top of and around his, tucking herself comfortably against his side. And even though he was still asleep, Sokka’s arm curled around her, pulling her snug against his body. She’d lain with her head on his shoulder, matching her breath with his, tracing her fingertip drowsily down the tendons in his neck until, eventually, he’d stirred into consciousness. 

But this morning, despite the hazy pre-dawn light filtering through the bedroom window, Suki was alone, the covers on Sokka’s side of the bed a jumbled, empty mess. And when she pressed her hand to his side of the mattress, she frowned, discovering it was cool to the touch. She was suddenly very aware of the way her pants were bunching up around her calves, and how the blankets were twisted up underneath her body, without another body in the bed to keep them in place. Immediately uncomfortable, she kicked her way free and swung her legs over the side of the mattress. Without Sokka’s breath against which to time her own, she watched the sun rise outside the window and attempted to match her internal rhythm to that of the dawn.

When she heard the door slide open and shut behind her, she turned. Sokka, his hair down, blue Water Tribe tunic hanging loose and open around his shoulders, stood just inside the threshold with a bundle of something in the crook of his elbow. 

“Oh, you’re awake!” he said once he’d looked up.

“Hey, you,” Suki replied, smiling gently. “I missed you this morning.”

Sokka rubbed his arm sheepishly.

“Sorry, I thought I’d be back before you got up. I, uh…I got you something.” And he held out the bundle: a pile of red fabric. 

“What’s this?” Suki asked, getting to her feet, but as soon as she had the fabric in her arms, she could tell it was Fire Nation clothing. 

“I felt bad that you were still wearing your prison clothes…” 

Suki carded through each of the garments, trying to make sense of what she was holding. There was something elegant about the deep wine color and gold lining. And were those gems at the collar?

“Sokka…” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Where did you get this?”

“I’m not at liberty to divulge my sources,” he said, hands raised dismissively. 

She narrowed her eyes at him, but after a moment with no response, she asked, “Did you steal these?” 

“What is _stealing_ , really? Consider it…restitution.”

“Sokka.”

“Okay, fine. There were some clothes in storage upstairs. Those could’ve been Azula’s, I don’t know… I didn’t want to weird you out.” He shrugged, but the gesture was too agitated to be a sign of indifference. It was more like he was shrugging off an unwelcome presence.

“Oh…” Suki looked down at the garments she was holding, expecting some visceral reaction, but she saw nothing of the Fire Nation soldier-princess in the delicate clothing draped softly across her arms. “You know what? It’s fine.” 

“Really?”

“What was that you said about restitution?” Suki met Sokka’s eye with a grin, and Sokka let out a breath, slumping forward briefly.

“Okay, well, I’ll just…” and he pointed both thumbs over his shoulder to indicate his intention to leave the room.

“Just turn around, I’ll only be a sec,” Suki insisted. 

Once Sokka’s back was facing her, she turned, as well, and slipped out of her grungy pants and long tunic. The silk of the Fire Nation clothing was a welcome contrast to the scratchy wool of her prison garb, and it reminded her — with a bittersweet pang — of her Kyoshi Warrior uniform. It took her a moment to work out what to do with the wraparound, but once the long belt was secured with the gold clasp, Suki clapped triumphantly.

“Okay!”

“I hope it’s alright, I couldn’t really tell if it would fit—” 

Sokka cut off as soon as she turned around, as if his voice had gotten jammed in his throat. His eyes went wide.

“Oh, no, it fits great!” she said, adjusting the fabric of the forearm sleeves.

“I’ll say…” Then he cleared his throat. “I mean…you look…you look really pretty.” He shook his head a bit. “Not— Not that you didn’t look pretty before! You always look pretty—”

“Sokka,” Suki chuckled, walking towards him, “it’s okay for you _not_ to like a ratty old prison uniform.” She, for one, abhorred it. Maybe later they could all have a bonfire on the beach and she’d burn the cursed thing. “Thank you,” she continued, leaning up to kiss his cheek. 

“I got these, too,” he said, holding up a pair of matching slippers. “There’s a ton upstairs if these don’t fit, but I held them up to my feet and they looked, y’know, smaller _enough_ to be Suki-sized—”

“Wait, wait…you know how much smaller my feet are than yours?”

“Well, I… Not, like, in a creepy _I-study-your-feet-while-you’re-asleep_ kind of way or anything, there was just this one time…we were kinda feet-flirting, and I noticed your big toe came up to my pinky toe and I thought it was…neat.”

Kyoshi help her, this boy was cute. 

“You’re adorable,” she said, putting her hand on his cheek and guiding him down for a kiss. Then she plucked the slippers from his hand and put them on. They fit perfectly. 

Suki felt refreshed all of a sudden, like she’d stepped out of a heavy iron shell that had been encasing her entire body for weeks. She’d lost track of exactly how long she’d been wearing that prison uniform, and in moments when she became skin-crawlingly aware of the way it hung on her body — when the tunic bunched in precisely the wrong way, when the belt was simultaneously too loose and too tight — she’d tell herself it was because the garments were dirty. Or because the pant legs were too long for the muggy weather. Or the fabric too rough for her skin. But now that she was free of the uniform for good, she realized it was more than that. 

She beamed up at Sokka, placing her hands on his shoulders.

“We should go out!”

“What?” Sokka asked, looking like he hadn’t recovered yet from Suki’s compliment. His cheeks were a little flushed, and he still hadn’t lowered the hand that had been holding the shoes, despite it now being empty. 

“Y’know, check out the local village here on the island, see what’s going on.”

“For…like…intel?”

“No, you goof!” she laughed, swatting him on the arm. “For fun!”

“So…” He grinned, finally catching on, and placed his hands on her exposed waist. “Like a date?”

“Yeah,” Suki agreed, drifting closer as she wound her arms around his neck. “Like a date.” 

Her eyes fluttered closed, her nose brushed past his nose. She tilted her jaw forward to meet his mouth — but then Sokka suddenly pulled back.

“I don’t think we should,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. “There’s still so much to do here, the comet’s coming, I don’t know if we have time for a…” He met her gaze, brows knotted together. “…for a date.”

Suki couldn’t help herself from running her thumbs over Sokka’s eyebrows, attempting to smooth them into the same state of ease she’d seen them in the previous morning. 

“Sokka, we both know it doesn’t do any good to train non-stop. You don’t get better by never letting your body recover.” 

He nodded — once, reluctantly — into her hands. His arms had dropped to his sides, and Suki ran her hands from his shoulders to his fingertips, guiding him back around her body. 

“C’mon,” she continued. She drew one hand back to his chest and trailed her fingers along the edge of his tunic where it draped over his collarbone. “We’ll spar a little after breakfast, and then when everyone breaks for lunch, we’ll go into town for food. Just the two of us.”

“That does sound nice,” Sokka said, twining his arms around her more deliberately. 

“Great! Then it’s a date,” she said, smiling up at him, tilting her head slightly, waiting for Sokka to come to her. 

“It’s a date,” he said, and then pressed his mouth to hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [@the-power-of-stuff](https://the-power-of-stuff.tumblr.com/)


End file.
